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Poland to pull troops from Iraq by 2005
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-04 16:10

Poland will pull its troops out of Iraq by the end of 2005, when UN resolution 1546 endorsing the timetable for political transition in Iraq expires, Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski says.

Poland will pull its troops out of Iraq by the end of 2005, when UN resolution 1546 endorsing the timetable for political transition in Iraq expires, Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski says. Here a Polish patrol in Samawa. [AFP file]

"The final date (of our military presence in Iraq) should be that of the expiry of the UN Security Council resolution," in December 2005, the minister said in an interview with Polish public radio.

His comments marked the first time a Polish official has set a precise timetable concerning the withdrawal of Polish troops from Iraq.

Until now the Polish government had said it would reduce its military presence in Iraq in 2005.

Poland sent 2,500 troops to Iraq last year in the wake of the US-led invasion and heads up a multinational division of 6,000 soldiers, including 2,500 Poles, in south-central Iraq.

But amid strong popular opposition to the Polish troop deployment and violent unrest in the embattled country, the government in Warsaw is under domestic pressure to bring to an end Poland's military involvement in Iraq.

Seventeen Polish nationals have died in Iraq -- 13 soldiers and four civilians -- including three soldiers killed in an attack last month near the central Iraqi city of Hilla.

According to the latest poll, more than 70 percent of Poles are opposed to the presence of their country's troops in Iraq.

"I hope that the situation in Iraq will allow us to carry out our plan to withdraw our units," said Szmajdzinski.

"We do not have such a major army as the United States or Britain to allow us to have limitless possibilities," he added.

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